After a trip to Staffordshire Graham Young and family dropped into The Old Speckled Hen Pub in Mere Green for a hearty meal.

Old Speckled Hen

Driving down the A38 from Staffordshire towards Brum, I wondered where we could stop for a hearty meal.

Somewhere good. Somewhere we hadn’t been to for ages. Somewhere offering value for money, too.

Arriving at the Bassetts Pole island, we took the Sutton Coldfield road and, on spec, pitched up at the Old Speckled Hen in Mere Green.

Once a school, it had most recently been a Lock Fyne restaurant.

I had been mightily impressed with this place when the Old Speckled Hen first opened as a Greene King pub in early 2009.

Still looking pristine under the same umbrella, its qualities didn’t disappoint in any way upon our return.

Remarkably, having travelled with a heart-in-mouth feeling that it would be absolutely rammed on a Sunday afternoon, we found the absolute opposite to be true.

Bizarrely, it was almost a case of spot the other customer.

By the kind of fluke which so often escapes us, we’d arrived at just the right time.

Our waitress was bright and cheerful. Always a bonus.

She even knew the relative strengths of the ales off the top of her head.

In a world of mediocrity, that felt like a top class touch.

The menu included my shank of lamb, a wonderfully sweet meat which most pubs can’t be bothered with, even though Britain’s fields are full of tasty sheep. It was so good it was great value, even at £9.95.

Thanks to this indulgence, my wife Collette and two children scavenged the bottom end of the menu for wholetail scampi (£6.45), sausage and mash (£3.95) and fish and chips (£3.95) respectively. All dandy.

But there was a little moment which made us fall even more in love with this place.

And that was an instant offer of extra veg if we wanted it.

Never have we had an opportunity like that. Hello mash!

Such a bonus meant that we could not complain about our one little gripe.

Collette asked for a glass of wine without either of us checking the price first – and it never ceases to surprise me that whenever we let our guard slip, there’s a sting in the tail.

Said glass of Domaine Begude was priced at £6.50 on the bill.

Yes, it was organic, but then my pint of Old Golden Hen was even better – for £2.90.

A J20 and an Appletiser (£1.90 each) and one excellent, shared garlic ciabatta starter (£1.95) took the total bill to a still not unreasonable £38.95.

Without the wine, that really would have been the bargain of the year.